This amazing low carb cranberry white chocolate cake makes an ideal Thanksgiving or Christmas dessert recipe. It feeds a crowd and tastes like pure holiday joy.
So I appear to have entirely skipped over Thanksgiving this year and gone straight to Christmas. I don’t know why but I am ridiculously excited to get into the Christmas goodies this year. I have zillions upon zillions of ideas and not even a snowball’s chance in hell of having time to make them all. I will probably manage to make a small fraction of them but if you’re talking zillions, that’s still a lot of holiday recipes to be made. And since I actually got started on them a few weeks back, I am well on my way to making this the best low carb Christmas season ever. That’s my plan, anyway.
I used to have a rule a silly little rule that I mustn’t start my holiday baking until after Thanksgiving. But as I’ve grown older and infinitely wiser, I’ve realized that this is an absolutely arbitrary and senseless impediment to my holiday enjoyment. ‘Tis the season of joy, after all. Why put limits on enjoying the joy? So this year, I quite unabashedly got an early jump on it and now I am bringing you the first low carb Christmas recipe of the season.
And what a recipe it is. Tender grain-free white cake, creamy white chocolate frosting, tart-sweet cranberry filling. And I maintain that because of the cranberries, this could easily be a contender for your Thanksgiving dessert instead. You know, if you aren’t like me and haven’t already skipped ahead in your mind to December.
I am also unabashedly proud of the various parts of this cake too. The white chocolate buttercream was a recent “discovery” when I was making my daughter’s birthday cupcakes. For some reason, it got lumpy and weird and I realized I’d probably added the cream when it was too cold. So I melted a little cocoa butter and beat it in, and the frosting became creamy and smooth again. And tasted delightfully like white chocolate.
And the “sugared” cranberries…I have tried making these several times by soaking fresh berries and then rolling them in Swerve. But since Swerve doesn’t get sticky like sugar, it would all fall off as the cranberries dried. But a flash of inspiration when my eye fell on some isomalt fiber syrup in my pantry. I use it sparingly because I think it’s not as diabetes-friendly as other sweeteners. But 2 little teaspoons was enough to coat my berries in something sticky so that the Swerve would stay on. Worked like a charm!
So here’s to the holiday season, be it Thanksgiving or Christmas or both. This is a showstopper of a cake and serves a crowd. Enjoy!
Cranberry White Chocolate Layer Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 1/2 cups almond flour
- 1/3 cup coconut flour
- 1/3 cup unflavoured whey protein powder
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup Swerve Sweetener
- 5 large egg whites, room temperature
- 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream, room temperature
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cranberry Filling:
- 3 cups fresh cranberries
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/3 cup powdered Swerve Sweetener
White Chocolate Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 3/4 cup powdered Swerve Sweetener
- 3/4 cup whipping cream, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 ounces cocoa butter, melted (and cooled a bit)
"Sugared" Cranberries (optional)
- 1/2 cup fresh cranberries
- 2 tsp isomalt fiber syrup
- 1 tbsp Swerve Sweetener
Instructions
Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325F and grease 3 (three) 9-inch or 8-inch round baking pans very well (if you only have two pans, you bake the cake layers in batches.
- In a medium bowl, combine the almond flour, coconut flour, protein powder, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large bowl, beat butter with sweetener until well combined and fluffy. Beat in the egg whites. Add half the almond flour mixture and beat in, scraping down the sides of the bowl and the beaters as needed.
- Beat in the cream, water, and vanilla extract, then beat in the remaining almond flour mixture until well combined. Divide the batter among the prepared pans and spread to the edges. Smooth the tops.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until edges are just golden and the cake layers are firm to the touch. Remove and let cool 10 minutes, then flip out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Cranberry Filling:
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring cranberries and water to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the berries have all burst and can easily be mashed with a fork, about 10 minutes. Whisk in sweetener.
- Place on cake layer on a serving plate and top with half of the cranberry filling, spreading all the way to the edges. Repeat with a second layer and the remaining filling. Top with the final layer of cake.
White Chocolate Frosting:
- In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, and sweetener together until well combined. Beat in whipping cream and vanilla until smooth.
- Drizzle with melted cocoa butter and beat in until well combined. Spread frosting over top and sides of cake.
Sugared Cranberries:
- In a bowl, combine the cranberries and syrup. Sprinkle with sweetener. Place on top of the cake.
Notes
Total fat: 34.41g
Calories from fat: 309
Cholesterol: 77mg
Carbohydrate: 9.51g
Total dietary fiber: 3.72g
Protein: 8.13g
Erythritol: 31.9g
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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Hi Carolyn,
This cake was a big hit at a family birthday today. You weren’t kidding when you wrote that the cake is tender – the layers need to be treated with kid gloves as they can break really easily! Funnily enough, the icing got weirdly lumpy after I added the melted cocoa butter. (I had microwaved the cream for 45 seconds to take the chill off) The texture didn’t affect the taste or presentation.
Thanks for the great basic white cake recipe. It’s a great canvas for any type of filling!
All the best for the holidays!
Denise
Oh yes, definitely don’t microwave the cream. Every time I do that, my frosting goes wonky like that. It should be room temp but don’t try to warm it up!
This cake is absolutely beautiful! Like you said, perfect for Thanksgiving OR Christmas. The cranberries look like they add just enough tartness so the cake isn’t too sweet, love it!
Looks like another WINNER Carolyn! My daughter is having dairy issues, so I’m already calculating my swaps for a dairy free version. I’ll let you know if I am successful…?
Good luck, let me know how it turns out. The best non-dairy cream cheese I know of is from Kite Hill
If I use Pyure, I should use 1/2 the amount listed for Swerve? Since Swerve is powdery, will a granular sugar substitute still work?
I don’t know how Pyure measures compared to sugar but if it’s cup for cup, then you should use the exact same amount as I used. If you want a powdered sweetener for the frosting, try powdering your Pyure in a coffee grinder.
This looks amazing!
I realize that using a natural sugar would raise the carb content of your recipes but I don’t feel well on highly processed sweeteners like Xylitol, Swerve and those types. So would much prefer using maple sugar, coconut sugar or even maple syrup or honey. Can you tell me how I could substitute these instead of the Swerve please? The coconut sugar would be considered more of a granular type I suppose, while the maple sugar is more powdered. Thanks for any help you can give me. I would love to make this cake for Christmas.
Thanks so much.
I’m sorry but as I don’t use these things, I really can’t tell you. I do know that you won’t get a “white chocolate” frosting using these things. Their flavour is overpowering for the delicate flavour of the frosting. FYI, though, Swerve measures like sugar so you can use whatever sweetener you like in terms of how it measures like sugar.
Beautiful looking cake. I am making it for Christmas. Does it need to be refrigerated? Since the icing has cream in it I am thinking it does. I will need to make it a day or 2 before.
Yes, it should stay in the refrigerator.
Carolyn, I am not a cake fan nor a ‘white chocolate’ fan but this looks fabulous. I will make it for Chrstimas this year. Two questions:
1. Do you use ‘defatted’ almond flour? I purchased some from Sukrin. If you have used it what are your impressions/thoughts?
2. I usually make homemade cranberry sauce using liquid stevia and a few cinnamon sticks in addition to orange zest and water. Do you think something like my description of cranberry sauce will work in the filling for this cake? Especially using liquid stevia as the sweetener for the filling?
Thanks for this beautiful cake receive.
No, not defatted almond flour. That has its uses but it would be much too dry for this cake. I suggest Bob’s Red Mill Super Fine. I think your cranberry sauce should be fine, as long as it’s pretty thick. You don’t want a thin, runny sauce or it will spill over the sides of the cake.
This cake looks amazing.
What can I do in place of cocoa butter. I live in South Africa
And so far haven’t been able to find it.
I think you’re just going to have to do a plain cream cheese frosting.
Hi Jackie, I’m in Cape Town. You can buy Cacao Butter from several places: Wellness Warehouse, some Dischems and the lovely Faithful to Nature (online). My favourite brands are Trace the Taste and Superfoods. (B.t.w I often switch the final ao to oa in “cacao”, which obviously results in an unsuccessful search! Good luck, Karla
I made this yesterday, and it turned out beautifully. I think next time I might use a bit of maybe orange extract in the cake itself (or orange zest) – Texture of the cake was nice, but I wanted a little more flavor to it, and orange plays nicely with cranberry. And OMG the frosting – my husband, who doesn’t have that much of a sweet tooth, was licking the spatula. and the beater. and the bowl… lol. I think you have a winner here!
Thanks, Mary Anna!
Is there a substitute I can use for the 1/3 cup whey protein powder? Or is it ok to leave it out completely?
You can use egg white protein instead. Protein powder isn’t to increase the protein content in the recipe but instead to help the cake rise and hold its shape. I suggest getting a bag for low carb baked goods, it will help a great deal.
This looks amazing! My husband isn’t crazy about crsnberries, but I wonder how it would taste with raspberries instead…. It seems like it should work, right? I probably wouldn’t do the sugared topping in that case.
Yes, it should work with raspberries as well.
The egg whites are not beaten before adding to the butter and sweetner right?
No, not beaten.
Carolyn,
What a BEAUTIFUL, GORGEOUS creation! You’ve outdone yourself this time! Amazing!!!
Can’t wait to see what all you’ve been up to with your holiday baking. Sounds like so much fun!
Sometime down the road, might this cake be one converted to the “mini” versions like you’ve done?
The happiest of Happy and merriest of Merry to you and yours!
With sincere thanks for all you do.
Alice B.
I could maybe be persuaded to make a mini… 🙂
So any chance you have a mini version? I’d like to make this for Christmas but would like to TRY it before hand without having a huge cake… thanks!!
I don’t have a mini version of this one. Sorry. What I usually do is scale things down by dividing everything by 8, if I want it to just serve 2 people. Even eggs or egg whites can be divided up if you whisk them first.
So if you did that, what size pan would you use?
4-inch pans
This sounds wonderful! I will definitely be making it soon since I have tons of cranberries in the freezer. I am a huge white chocolate lover! I have a recipe for a white chocolate cheesecake that calls for 12 oz of white chocolate. Do you think I could follow your lead and just use cocoa butter & extra swerve?
Yes but I wouldn’t use that much cocoa butter, it would be overpowering. White chocolate is a little bit of cocoa butter, lots of milk product, lots of sugar and some vanilla. I’d say you need only about 2 to 4 ounces cocoa butter to replace that amount of white chocolate.
Thank you so much! I plan on experimenting over the next few days. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Just beautiful, can’t wait to make it! I’ve made so many of your recipes, especially the desserts and they’ve all been wonderful.
This is just absolutely gorgeous! I cant decide if I want this for Christmas or Thanksgiving! I love white chocolate and have a little cocoa butter tucked away for something special and this will be perfect!
Thanks, Allison! I posted it before Thanksgiving because even though I conceived it as a Christmas dessert, it could be both!
I was thinking the same thing…but, I can’t wait…I will make it for both holidays!
Looks gorgeous, can’t wait to try it!